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Poor in Ohio need pantries, food stamps

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As an anti-hunger activist, I respond to last Wednesday’s
Dispatch article “Kids still struggling, study finds.” Since August 2004, I have been
driving to Mineral in Athens County to help with the Feed My Sheep food pantry. Many parents and
grandparents come to the pantry. Most of them receive food stamps. There never is enough food, much
less healthy, good-quality food.

We have 24 percent of Ohio’s children living in poverty. I am sure it is higher in Athens
County and the other 30 Ohio counties in Appalachia. Lack of good nutrition does not make for
healthy children and good learners. Cutting food stamps is wrong.

Cutting the funding would increase health problems for our children and reduce their ability
to raise themselves out of poverty by getting a good education.

President George W. Bush once said compassionate conservatism does not balance the budget on
the backs of the poor. The draconian cuts in the SNAP program (food stamps) by the House are
neither compassionate nor the conservatism Bush was talking about.